10 Major Lessons WWE Must Learn From 2017
5. They Are Women, Not Divas
The "Women's Revolution" faltered badly this year.
Sasha Banks and Bayley shared both friendship and irrelevance. Fellow Four Horsewomen Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch were equally anonymous, perhaps - not that the prospect excuses the complete lack of creative attention - because the SmackDown scribes are simply waiting for 'Mania season.
Even worse were the storylines WWE did pay attention to. Bayley was portrayed as a wallflower, Alicia Fox is still crazy after all these years, Mickie James an "old lady" - and given that the latter is younger than AJ Styles, there is no counterargument to the fact that these dismal arcs were mapped with the gender of the performers in mind. WWE regressed at least six years in this regard; about the only difference between the Women's division and the Divas of old concerned match length - and since everything goes long in the Network age, it's hardly a commendation.
The multiple multi-woman matches cast the vast majority of female performers as interchangeable parts to an outmoded machine - and, consequently, it was virtually impossible to care about any of them. At various points, they were all as good or as bad as the other, taking it in turns to do jobs and participate in title matches, the quality of which fell sharply.
It's nowhere near good enough - but the very weird reemergence of the brush-daft trios business of 2015 threatens to paint the likes of Mandy Rose into a corner.